Front cover

Big Data Analytics with

IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes

David Cushing
MaryAlice Campbell
Avery Hagleitner

Solution Guide
Big Data Analytics with IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes
IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes, which is a feature of the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence
V10.2.2 software, complements the existing query engine. As explained in this IBM
Redbooks Solution Guide, it extends Cognos scalability to enable speed-of-thought
analytics over terabytes of enterprise data, without being forced to rely on a new
data-warehousing appliance. With this capability, which adds a level of query intelligence,
you can unleash the power of your large enterprise data warehouse.

Figure 1 illustrates how the IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes is integrated into the IBM Cognos
Business Intelligence stack.

Scorecards Ad-hoc
Dashboards Query
What-If
Reports Analysis

Analysis Trend &

& Exploration Statistical
Analysis

Common Business Model

Dynamic
Dynamic Query
OLAP Compatible Dimensionally
Over Query Mode Modeled
Cubes Mode
Relational Relational

Open Data
at Access
ata Acces
Acces
cesss

PowerCubes
Modern and Legacy
R
Relational Sources
Sources
Database
D
Aggregates
Ag
Application
Large Enterprise 3rd Party OLAP Sources
Data Warehouse Sources

Figure 1 IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes integrated into the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence stack

Copyright IBM Corp. 2015. All rights reserved. ibm.com/redbooks 1

Did you know?
Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data so much that 90% of the data in the world
today has been created in the last two years alone. Social media is now generating petabytes
of data per day.

Business value
With social data generating petabytes per day, and instrumented devices becoming the norm,
data volume growth is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Big data is a growing business
trend, with data from unconventional sources having the potential to be business disruptors.
However, before the power of these new sources can be fully used, you must understand
what is happening within your own business. Understanding your own business is added
value of a data warehouse and is why taking full advantage of these data holdings is a critical
first step to using these new sources of data. In addition, any organization that relies on
instrumented infrastructures can maximize the efficiency of its operations. Analytics is key to
accomplishing this type of optimization, leading to concrete business results.

Data warehouses are the recognized foundation for enterprise analytics. By using data
warehouses, an organization can bring together cleansed data from separate sources of
input, both internal and external, such as from partners or suppliers. Instead of garbage-in,
garbage-out information to support decision-making, a consistent and consolidated
enterprise-wide view of data from a business provides the foundation to improve your
business. Building upon a trusted information platform for analytics is a key contributor to
long-term business health. Not only do data warehouses enable higher quality information,
they enable high-performance data access for analytic-style applications. IBM Cognos
Dynamic Cubes technology helps in using the core strengths of an enterprise data
warehouse and taking it to the next level of performance for analytics, making the deploying
and tuning easier and faster.

Solution overview
The IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes technology is meant to solve a specific but growing
business problem, enabling high-performance interactive analysis over terabytes of data in an
enterprise data warehouse. As data volumes grow, analyzing that data with speed-of-thought
performance can be challenging. Even with modern data warehouse technology, some
operations require significant computation or data movement. This computation or movement
creates delays and reduces the satisfaction of business users who want to perform these
analyses.

Various ways exist to accomplish performance over large volumes of data. From
self-contained cubes to large in-memory appliances, different vendors are employing
variations of similar methodologies to give business users timely response times.
The Cognos Dynamic Cubes technology aims to give maximum flexibility in how memory
is used to accelerate interactive analysis over terabytes of data so that you can evolve
your deployments over time

2 Big Data Analytics with IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes

Solution architecture
The IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes technology is part of the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence
query stack and is available with existing IBM Cognos entitlements. It provides a powerful
means to enable high performance analytics over large data warehouses (see Figure 2).

Computing Node Computing Node

Dispatcher Dispatcher

Report Report
Server Server
Query service Query service

Dynamic Dynamic
Cube Cube

Data Warehouse

Figure 2 A high-level representation of the Cognos Dynamic Cubes architecture

The Cognos Dynamic Cubes solution consists of IBM Cognos Cube Designer (a modeling
tool), a dynamic cube object in the administration environment (which becomes the data
source), a package to enable Cognos BI client access to a dynamic cube, and the Aggregate
Advisor (a wizard) that is started from within the Dynamic Query Analyzer.

IBM Cognos Cube Designer is a modeling tool that brings together the best modeling
principles from past successful modeling technology, with a modern and extensible
architecture. The first step to deploying Cognos Dynamic Cubes is to model with the Cognos
Cube Designer.

After a dynamic cube is designed and deployed to the Cognos content store, it becomes
available in the Cognos BI environment and is accessed through a corresponding package as
an OLAP data source within any one of the Cognos BI client interfaces. A dynamic cube
manages all aspects of data retrieval and leverages memory to maximize responsiveness,
giving you full flexibility to manage what is in memory and when you want to refresh
in-memory data. You manage dynamic cubes in the Cognos Administration Console.

A dynamic cube contains several in-memory elements to drive performance:

Metadata members
Aggregates
Data
Results sets
Expressions

The Aggregate Advisor scans cube definitions and usage logs and then recommends both
in-database and in-memory aggregates to improve performance. This approach helps to
more easily address specific performance problems.

3
Usage scenarios
The Cognos Dynamic Cubes solution applies to the following usage scenarios.

Multigrain fact scenarios

A common requirement when creating a business application is to merge data from two or
more areas of the business that have different scope or levels of granularity of the data. This
might manifest itself as two or more star or snowflake schemas within a data warehouse that
have different associated dimensions and, of those in common, different levels of granularity.
For example, one fact table might include customer information and the other does not, and
one fact table might contain data at the granularity of days while the other might contain data
at the month level. This difference in fact grain might cause more difficulty in planning queries
correctly if a report user included a level below the fact grain in the report.

With Dynamic Cubes, each fact table is modeled as a separate dynamic cube and these are
in turn incorporated into a virtual cube. A virtual cube can be used to manage the presence of
non-conformed dimensions and also common dimensions with different levels of granularity.

An example of such a use case is the need to compare actual versus plan sales data.
The actual sales data might be at the granularity of day level whereas sales plan data might
be recorded at the month level. By using a virtual cube that merges both of these cubes, you
can make a query with day-level objects (or a member of that level, depending on the studio
that you are using) against the sales facts. Then, you get the results and the expected null
values for the planned sales facts. If you used a time dimension grain that was common to
both fact tables, you get non-null values for measures from both fact tables.

In-database aggregates scenario

A second scenario addresses situations where a higher level of granularity of data is
desirable for performance reasons. This is accomplished using a Dynamic Cubes feature
called in-database aggregates. In-database aggregates define the measures, dimensions,
and dimension grain by which queries can be routed to aggregate tables rather than to the
detail fact table. Because in-database aggregate tables store fact data at a higher-than-detail
level of granularity, the time necessary to aggregate values during the query can be lessened,
improving performance. A query can be routed to the aggregate table if all the measures and
dimension hierarchies of the query exist in the in-database aggregate definition. Not all of the
dimensions and measures in the in-database aggregate must be in the query.

The objective of modeling an in-database aggregate is to establish rules by which a dynamic

cube can detect when it can route a query to an aggregate table. This task is done by
specifying a mapping from the identifiers in the dimensions and measures in the cube that
have scope to the aggregate table, to the identifiers in the aggregate table. If necessary,
mapping is done to its related tables in a rolled-up dimension schema.

This in-database aggregate routing directs a query only to the aggregate table for a query
that uses objects from a dimension grain at or above the grain of the mapping between it
and the aggregate table. Therefore, using objects from a grain below the mapping grain
does not cause double-counting because, in this case, the query continues to route to the
detail fact table.

4 Big Data Analytics with IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes

Integration
IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes is tightly integrated into the Cognos Business Intelligence stack,
and its data can be surfaced through any of the Cognos client interface. As a result, existing
customers can integrate Dynamic Cubes technology into their application environment
without affecting existing users. Such users are already familiar with interfaces such as
Report Studio, Cognos Workspace, and Cognos Workspace Advanced.

Different data requirements require different data solutions. One data path cannot be
proficient at solving widely different data problems. Therefore, IBM Cognos has technologies
that are built to suit specific application requirements. Table 1 can help you better understand
the primary use case for each technology. However, carefully consider your individual
application requirements when you make such a decision.

Table 1 Use cases for IBM Cognos data technologies

Cube technology Primary use cases

IBM Cognos TM1, in-memory cube
technology with write-back support
It is optimal for write-back, what-if analysis, planning
and budgeting, or other specialized applications.
It can handle medium data volumes. The cube is run
100% in memory.
Aggregation occurs on demand, which can affect
performance with high data and high user volumes.

Dynamic Cubes, in-memory
accelerator for dimensional analysis
It is optimal for read-only reporting and analytics over
large data volumes.
It provides extensive in-memory caching for
performance, backed by aggregate awareness to use
the power and scalability of a relational database.
A star or snowflake schema is required in the
underlying database (used to maximize performance).

PowerCubes, file-based cube with It is optimal to provide consistent interactive analysis

pre-aggregation experience to many users when the data source is an
operational or transactional system, and a star or
snowflake data structure cannot be achieved.
The pre-aggregated cube architecture requires careful
management, by using cube groups to achieve
scalability.
Data latency is inherent with pre-aggregated cube
technology, where data movement into the cube is
required.

OLAP Over Relational (OOR), It is optimal to easily create a dimensional data

dimensional view of a relational exploration experience over low data volumes in an
database operational or transactional system, and where latency
must be carefully managed.
Caching on the Dynamic Query server helps
performance.
Processing that is associated with operational or
transactional system affects performance.

5
Supported platforms
For information about software environments that are supported in IBM Cognos Business
Intelligence V10.2.2, see the Cognos Business Intelligence 10.2.2 Supported Software
Environments web page:
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27042164

Ordering information
Ordering information is shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Ordering part numbers and feature codes

Program number Program name

5724-W12 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.2.2

5724-W68 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence PowerPlay V10.2.0

5724-W13 IBM Cognos Data Manager V10.2.0

5724-W20 IBM Cognos Mobile V10.1.0

Related information
For more information, see the following documents:
IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes, SG24-8064-01
IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook, SG24-7912
IBM Cognos Dynamic Query, SG24-8121

Also see the following web pages:

Business Intelligence 10.2.2 documentation
http://ibm.co/1zZb7hP
Dynamic Cubes Installation and Configuration Guide 10.2.2
http://ibm.co/1FdEVI0
Dynamic Cubes User Guide 10.2.2
http://ibm.co/1QIQVoG
Dynamic Query Analyzer Installation and Configuration Guide 10.2.2
http://ibm.co/1bOVzBU
Dynamic Query Analyzer User Guide 10.2.2
http://ibm.co/1H37JQm
Framework Manager User Guide 10.2.2
http://ibm.co/1IAFpsD

6 Big Data Analytics with IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes

Authors
This Solution Guide was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working at
the International Technical Support Organization, Poughkeepsie Center.

David Cushing is the Product Manager for IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes, based in Ottawa,
Canada. David has been with IBM Cognos for 25 years and joined IBM as a result of the
acquisition of Cognos. David has a Master of Computer Science degree from Dalhousie
University, Nova Scotia, Canada.

MaryAlice Campbell is a Senior Consultant and Business Analytics Technical Practice

Leader at ISW, Australia. She has over 20 years of experience as a business analytics
specialist. MaryAlice is an IBM Cognos BI veteran having gained experience with the early,
pre-web versions of IBM Cognos PowerPlay and IBM Cognos Impromptu; she contributed
to beta and training programs, and worked with all subsequent releases. MaryAlice is also an
IBM Certified Solution Developer, internationally recognized educator, and a Master Instructor
of the IBM Analytics curriculum.

Avery Hagleitner is a Software Architect for IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes in IBM Analytics
Solutions at the IBM Silicon Valley Laboratory. Avery has over 14 years of software
development experience at IBM. Her interests range from high-performance Java server
applications to engaging graphical user interfaces. Her areas of expertise include business
intelligence, data warehousing, and online analytical processing (OLAP). Avery holds a
master's degree in Software Engineering from San Jose State University, California, USA, a
Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and a minor in Psychology from the
University of California, San Diego.

The project that produced this publication was managed by Marcela Adan, IBM Redbooks
Project Leader - IBM International Technical Support Organization, Global Content Services.

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Copyright IBM Corp. 2015. All rights reserved. 9

This document, REDP-5265-00, was created or updated on September 11, 2015.

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